Weekly Challenge – Portrait of a Man

First – go look at the image collection if you haven’t already done so. I tried to choose portraits that jumped out at me on Flickr for one reason or another. Usually it was lighting or an expression that caught my eye.

But there two things that I think all of these images have in common is connection to the subject, and storytelling. There is a story in each one of these images and men. What stories do you see? What stories do you tell with your images?

So your challenge this week is to make a portrait of a man, perhaps someone you know, or maybe a complete stranger on the street. But dig a little deeper than just taking a photo of their face. Make a portrait of their essence.

The say the eyes are the windows to the soul. What better way to truly capture a person’s soul than through the eyes. Expression does not come from the mouth – it starts in the eyes. Go back again and look at the eyes of the men in those portraits, without looking at their mouths. Can you still see the expression? Can you feel them more deeply?

Here’s a few more portraits to get you inspired:

By Elvin

By StefaniaVS

By Joe Martin

By Randi Scott

By See-ming Lee

Sorry I thought this image was too funny, I couldn’t resist! Notice, humour is good too!

When you’ve created your stunning portraits please share!

Once you’ve taken your “portrait of a man” we’d love to see them in comments below. Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section as pictured below) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer upload them to your favourite photo sharing site and leave the link to them.

Need more portrait help?

Try one of the articles from the last two weeks (there’s been one every day) or start here:

Darlene Hildebrandt
is an educator who teaches aspiring amateurs and hobbyists how to improve their skills through articles on her site Digital Photo Mentor, online photography classes, and travel tours to exotic places like Scotland (May 15-25th, 2019), Peru, Thailand, and India. To help you at whatever level you're at she has two email mini-courses. Sign up for her free beginner OR portrait photography email mini-course here. Or get both, no charge!